Can someone take a look?

[Aurélien Gâteau]

On 01.04.2013 11:44, David Edmundson wrote:
> Question:
> Do you think it is "rude" to add something to someone's unit tests
> that would make the tests fail, if the unit test is valid, and you're
> highlighting a reported bug?
>
> I'd like answers for both the case of submitting via reviewboard, and
> also the hypothetical situation of not getting any replies and
> submitting it anyway.

Moar unit tests!

I would not advice committing the fix right away as it could break
build.k.o as Martin said. I would also not advice submitting it to
reviewboard because in my opinion patches submitted to reviewboard
should be complete fixes. Submitting a unit-test demonstrating a bug
*and* a fix for it, on the other hand, is like the dream review request
and should be encouraged.

Nevertheless, writing a unit-test reproducing a bug is still a huge 
help
and a contribution which should be warmly welcomed by any maintainer. I
would attach it to the bug report and try to get a developer to comment
on it.

This last part, getting a developer to comment on it, brings back the
original topic of this thread: is it rude to send an email to a
developer or mailing-list when a bug has been reported but hasn't seen
any progress for a long time?

My answer is: it depends. It depends on the project and on the bug
status. Projects like KWin use Bugzilla very efficiently, thanks to
the tireless efforts of their maintainers, especially Martin. For such
projects, it would not be good to contact developers through other 
ways,
because all bugs are regularly triaged.

Other projects are not so good at bug triaging, and the current 
Bugzilla
state for such projects makes it difficult for developers to make
efficient use of it. If a bug reports stays untriaged for, say, two
monthes, I think it is not rude to try to contact maintainers using
alternative ways, as long as your message is constructive and not
something like "Put your toys aside and look at bug #123456!!!"

This happens regularly to me. Even if I try to improve myself, I am bad
at enforcing the strict discipline of efficient Bugzilla handling (look
at the mess of Gwenview bug reports...) and often got to act because a
user mailed me about a particular report.

Aurélien